1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and, in particular, to an improved method and apparatus for processing electronic documents used in a commercial transaction.
2. Description of Related Art
A common occurrence in everyday life is the issuance and acceptance of a paper receipt as evidence of a commercial transaction. Such receipts include vouchers, sales slips, signed notices, paid bills, proofs of payment, statements, sales tickets, admittance, and cash register tapes. These items are used almost everywhere to provide a consumer and a merchant with some means of recording a commercial transaction to ensure that rights and responsibilities regarding the commercial transaction are honored between the parties through the transaction.
Currently, consumers and merchants use paper receipts that must be retained not only until the purchase value has been received by the customer but also for future problems regarding claims and responsibilities with regards to the commercial transaction. For the consumer, maintaining many receipts over a period of time may be difficult. For the merchant, the issuance of a paper receipt almost guarantees that the merchant must create and maintain other paper records that match the paper receipt.
For example, in a typical purchasing transaction, a consumer may travel to a home supply store to buy building materials. After paying for some merchandise, the consumer will receive a paper receipt as proof of purchase. If the consumer has purchased some bulky items, such as lumber, the consumer may be required to proceed to a different location to pick up the lumber, such as a loading dock at the back of the store or at a nearby lumber yard. The consumer's purchase receipt serves as evidence of payment for the lumber and of the right to delivery of the lumber from an agent of the home supply store. Once the consumer has tendered the receipt, the agent may physically mark the paper receipt to show that the lumber has been delivered, and the lumber is given to the consumer.
The use of paper receipts in this situation creates some minor inconveniences. The consumer must ensure that the paper receipt is not lost before the lumber is picked up, which is usually not difficult as the lumber would probably be picked up in a short amount of time. However, the consumer is required to keep the receipt in case the consumer desires to return any defective merchandise. As some stores may allow the return of certain merchandise after several months, the consumer may need to file the paper receipt in a special place to ensure that it is not lost.
The merchant also confronts some inconveniences. The home supply store's purchase transaction system may update inventory records immediately upon the sale of the merchandise, even though not all of the merchandise has been removed from the stock. If the purchase transaction system is set up so that a lumber yard manager must enter a transaction into an electronic terminal to update the inventory records, and the lumber yard manager fails to do so, then the inventory records will not properly match the actual inventory.
As is familiar to most consumers, the maintenance and transfer of paper receipts for such purposes may be both cumbersome and annoying. Therefore, it would be useful to have a method and apparatus for electronically transferring proofs of purchase or other documents related to commercial transactions. It would be further advantageous to have a method and apparatus for transferring and storing detailed information concerning the status and details of a particular commercial transaction. It would be particularly advantageous to have a method and system for processing this information using physical media that is inexpensive, convenient, and durable.